You guys made a mistake by drumming up business for the show and how I would address my reporting for the first time (which is not true).I won’t allow WEEI, Kraft or anybody to make me the centerpiece of a story that has been misreported far beyond anything I did in first 48 hours.Maybe when the lawsuit is settled – in Brady’s favor, I hope — we can revisit.Don’t call.

— Email from ESPN’s Chris Mortensen to Dennis & Callahan

So Mortensen doesn’t want to be the centerpiece of a story that has been misreported, even though his own misreporting is the centerpiece of the story.

Does he make himself clear? Crystal.

This latest little plot twist in this whole sordid saga proves what I said immediately after Mortensen’s tweet back on Jan. 21: That from the very beginning this was a plot cooked up by persons in the NFL office to get the Patriots, and they were not about to let a thing like the truth get in the way.

On the same Friday show that Mortensen bailed out on, John Dennis reported that the weasel who fed the false intel to Mortensen is in fact Mike Kensil, who’s been basically Suspect No. 1 from the beginning. He had the means, the motive (he’s openly hated Bill Belichick going back to their days together with the Jets) and he had the opportunity to be the Patient Zero of the pandemic that is Deflategate, and it makes perfect sense that he’d use a stooge like Mortensen to spread the infection and make it go viral.

And if you’re still one of the sheeple who’ve bought the narrative that Tom Brady is guilty, how do you explain this? How do you justify a reporter refusing to back up his own report? It’s been 6 1/2 months, and Mort has never once addressed the fact that he put out a story that is contradicted by the investigation launched by the very people who fed him the fake information. Nor has he bothered to correct it. Neither obviously did anyone in the NFL, despite the fact they knew it to be wrong as soon as it was tweeted out.

There is only one explanation that fits. And it’s that “league sources” wanted to smear the Patriots, discredit their accomplishments and make them suffer a punishment. And somehow have gotten to the pasty they duped into starting the whole phony scandal to keep him from coming clean.

Now that we have the unprecedented development of a news reporter recusing himself from talking about his own news story, there is one logical next step. Chris Mortensen should be the plaintiff’s first witness in Brady v. The NFL. He began Deflategate. Let him begin the lawsuit he hopes Brady wins.

@JerryThornton1

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— Jets fans had some fun at the Patriots’ expense Thursday, flying a plane over Patriots training camp practice with a sign that read, “Cheaters look up.” However, they’ve got some problems with their own team to worry about.

Pro Bowl defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson, who like Tom Brady has been suspended for the first four games of the season — Richardson’s issues was a failed a drug test — was charged Thursday with resisting arrest along with a series of traffic violations after leading Missouri police on a high-speed chase earlier this month.

According to police, the St. Louis native and former University of Missouri star turned off the lights on his 2014 Bentley Silver Spur W 12 drove at speeds of up to 143 mph on I-64 during the July 14 pursuit. The 24-year-old eventually pulled into a driveway (after driving through a red light), where police discovered a strong odor of burned marijuana, a gun under the driver’s seat and a 12-year-old boy in the car with Richardson and two other men.

News of the legal problems broke Thursday, an hour after Richardson talked to the media about his suspension and insisted he’d stay out of trouble going forward.

“I take full accountability for my actions,” Richardson said of the suspension, which was announced July 2. “I apologized to my teammates and this organization, and I told them they don’t have to worry about my name being in the news again.”

Added Richardson: “I’m not a dope fiend, man. I can say no. I just chose not to. It was a depressing time in my offseason and that’s just that. It’s just that simple, bro.”

Richardson, the 13th overall pick in 2013, was the 2013 NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year after recording 78 tackles and 3.5 sacks. Last season he had 66 tackles and eight sacks and earned his first Pro Bowl selection.

A Jets spokesman said the team was “aware of the situation and gathering information.”

With the temperature at 101 degrees at the start of the game, Sabathia pitched five innings, allowing four runs — including a three-run home run to Josh Hamilton in the first inning and an inside-the-park home run in the fourth to Ryan Rua.

After the game, while icing his arm in the trainer’s room, Sabathia began experiencing symptoms of dehydration, the team said, and was taken to Medical Center of Arlington for fluids.

The hefty lefty did not fly with his teammates to Chicago, where the Yankees will play a three-game series against the White Sox.

Lieberman, who coached the D-League’s Texas Legends from 2009-11 and then served as an assistant general manager of the Mavericks for one season, had been working as a pregame and postgame analyst for Thunder games on Fox Sports Oklahoma.

“George [Karl] and I talked about brining her back after she helped us at Summer League [in Las Vegas],” Kings vice president Vlade Divac told the Sacramento Bee. “She was terrific. She brings a different dimension. I think it is a nice opportunity for her.”

Lieberman, 57, was a standout player at Old Dominion University in the late 1970s. She went on to play professionally, including alongside men in the United States Basketball League. In the inaugural season of the WNBA in 1997, she played for the Phoenix Mercury as a 39-year-old. After coaching the Detroit Shock for the three seasons starting in 1998, she played one game for the Shock in 2008 at the age of 50.

Lieberman follows Becky Hammon, who is entering her second season as an assistant with the Spurs.

ON THIS DAY TRIVIA (answer below): On July 31, 1997, in one of the most favorably one-sided deals in Red Sox history, Boston acquired catcher Jason Varitek and pitcher Derek Lowe from the Mariners for which reliever?

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “While this litigation is ongoing, it is appropriate (and helpful) for all counsel and all parties in the case to tone down their rhetoric. . . . If they have not already done so, the parties and counsel are directed forthwith actively to pursue a mutually acceptable resolution of this case.” — New York Judge Richard Berman, on the NFL and the union discussing a settlement in the Tom Brady case